Newt Gingrich holds a town hall meeting with the Meredith Lakes Region Tea Party in Meredith, N.H. The GOP presidential candidate defended his idea that children could be deployed as janitors. (Video) (Credit: C-SPAN.org)

"A reporter on the trail notes that Gingrich frequently says in his stump speeches that he would urge people to demand paychecks instead of food stamps — a talking point that it is not usually met with great alarm by the media. He also frequently says that he would go to the NAACP convention if it invited him. On Thursday morning, the two points came together when he said he would go to the NAACP convention and explain 'why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.'

"Slate's Dave Weigel tweeted a slightly altered version of Gingrich's quote at 9:34 a.m., and Talking Points Memo put it up less than 20 minutes later with the headline, 'Newt: African Americans Should Get Off Food Stamps; Demand Paychecks.' An hour after that, The Daily Beast ran its story with the headline, 'Gingrich to African-Americans: Get Off of Food Stamps.' By the end of the day, the AP was comparing the quote to a remark made by Rick Santorum that the president of the National Urban League criticized as pandering to racist elements in the GOP."

In a posting on Friday, Weigel explained why he found the Gingrich quote newsworthy.

"But in 2010 and 2011, Gingrich didn't say he was going to bring this message to black people, specifically. This was why his remarks on Thursday piqued my interest. A quick Nexis search — admittedly, Nexis hasn't been printing every transcript of every Newt speech — finds no examples of Gingrich saying he'll explain paychecks/food stamps at the NAACP's convention, and no example of Gingrich connecting food stamps/paychecks to black people specifically. ['Hmm,'] I thought. 'This is new.' "

Three other reporters whom Weigel said were in the room — from Yahoo News, Talking Points Memo and USA Today — did not respond to emails asking why they did not note the comment as Weigel did.

On Friday, Gingrich angrily denounced the media coverage of his comments.

In any case, NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous, in a statement, noted that Gingrich had previously turned down the invitation the former House speaker said he now welcomes. Jealous also apparently quoted Gingrich incorrectly.

Jealous' statement said, ". . . According to Talking Points Memo and other sources, Gingrich was quoted as saying, 'I will go to the NAACP convention, and explain to the African-American community why they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps.'

Weigel was hired in 2010 by Slate, which is owned by the Washington Post Co., after the Post fired him when "leaked online messages showed him disparaging some Republicans and commentators in highly personal terms," the Post's Howard Kurtz wrote at the time. Weigel, whose Post tenure lasted three months, had been hired to blog about conservatives.